Evolution and an Orthodox Patristic understanding of Genesis

[jckstraw72]

worldy pressures i guess. ppl dont want the faith to seem absurd to the world, but of course the idea of God becoming man and rising from the dead in order to make us like Him is fairly absurd from a worldy viewpoint anyways.

[Myrrh]

Please tell me if I am mistaken in believing that the traditional Orthodox understanding of Genesis is diametrically opposed to Western science's theory of evolution. What is the traditional Orthodox understanding of Genesis, and what should the Orthodox Christian's opinion be of Darwinian theory?

Orthodox teaching is that we're created in the image and likeness of God (male and female with free will), what did Darwin say about that?

Myrrh

[Pensees]

I understand why there would be disagreement on the age of the earth, given that the fathers disagreed as to the length of the creation days, but I don't see how the historicity of Adam and Eve could be disbelieved by the serious Orthodox Christian.
Would the Orthodox Church canonize a fictional character to the sainthood? Would the genealogy of Jesus, which establishes his office as Messiah, end with someone who never existed? Would God become man to restore the Creation tainted by a fictitious fall?

Peace.

[Myrrh]

I understand why there would be disagreement on the age of the earth, given that the fathers disagreed as to the length of the creation days, but I don't see how the historicity of Adam and Eve could be disbelieved by the serious Orthodox Christian.
Would the Orthodox Church canonize a fictional character to the sainthood? Would the genealogy of Jesus, which establishes his office as Messiah, end with someone who never existed? Would God become man to restore the Creation tainted by a fictitious fall?

Peace.

Adam means "mankind", humanity, just as God became "man" means mankind, not "a male". Orthodox don't associate 'the fall' with Genesis II, this is from Augustine's Original Sin doctrine which we don't have, we refer to it by the general "ancestral" sin. (The Fall refers to the battle in heaven when some angels rebelled and St Michael the Archangel led the battle to defend by his name - "Who is like God"? It's an ego thing.) Sin isn't a legalistic term in orthodoxy, it means "missing the mark".

Ancestral Sin comes from eating the fruit of the tree of learning the knowledge of good and evil, which, created in the image and likeness of God is part of our make-up. Genesis II is prime fodder for pious speculation, which is what the 'fathers' did - go ahead, you're free to speculate too. A classic description of Adam before Eve is of a 'hermaphrodite' being, which God then separated into male and female by splitting them apart, the word for 'rib' also means 'side'. One description I particularly like is that Adam and Eve were created joined side by side with no back.

But, a couple of things to bear in mind. Augustine's reading of Gen II errs because he misread "but in whatsoever day ye eat of it, ye shall surely die" as 'the day you eat it I will kill you' - i.e. Augustine read the act of eating as disobedience which merited death as punishment, not as Orthodox, that death comes as a consequence of eating of the fruit; the fruit is knowledge of good as well as evil.

Ancestral Sin is that, in eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil we became subject to death - as St John the Forerunner said:

"And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire."

as Christ says:

"A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things."

Christ, in whom there is neither male nor female, is the "new Adam" in that He restores mankind to full image and likeness of God,"be perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect".

"but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments"

Myrrh

[jckstraw72]

although not every Father agreed on the length of the days of creation, a good number of them believed htey were literal days, including Chrysostom, Ephraim the Syrian, Ambrose of Milan, etc etc.

[Pensees]

The "yom" of Genesis 1 can refer to either a literal 24-hour day or an indefinite period of time. Having said that, it's not surprising that just as many fathers of the Church did not consider the Genesis days to be 24 hours each.

Peace.

[DavidHawthorne]

You piqued my curiousity, Pensees, which ones hold to longer days?